Untwisting Reality

Ecuador 30’S: Conclusions of a Failed Coup

• By Poetry X
• 30 June, 2014
• No Comments

Just a few weeks ago, a commission revealed the definitive events behind the coup attempt that took place in Ecuador on September 30, 2010 where 10 people got killed.

EVENTS

• The entire police force of 40,000 men joined to revolt around the country because the media had convinced the public the government was going to reduce police benefits including their salaries.
• Despite a knee surgery, the president showed up in the barracks in front of 800 armed rebellious police to clear the misinformation about their salaries.
• Journalists like Ana Maria Cañizares, Eduardo Cordova, Hernan Higuera and many others were attacked and robbed by insubordinate police and masked opposition demonstrators.
• Massive violent looting riots took place in Guayaquil in about an hour the police went on strike.
• President Correa pretty much was forced to his car, but the police blocked him and was attacked and forced to flee the barracks to be taken to the nearby police hospital.
• A helicopter intended to land near the hospital to take president Correa, but the police around the hospital impeded the landing.
• Hostile police officers tried to advance into the hospital to get Correa, but hospitals personnel convinced them to stop.
• Outside the hospital, more anti government policemen were checking all departing ambulances to make sure the president doesn’t go away.
• A state of emergency was called after armed forces stormed National Assembly, blocked roads and set fires outside their barracks. The Unidad Nacional bridge was taken by opposition groups.
• Insubordinate personnel from the Air Force took control of Quito’s international airport impeding its regular traffic.
• Thousands of government sympathizers took the streets to support president Correa and demand his liberation from the coup-plotters.
• At the National Assembly, the police let convene only members of the opposition parties
• The opposition joined around 11 am to state an anticipated amnesty for the coup participants.  The opposition also offered letting Correa continue in his functions only if he adopts the opposition’s demands. Irina Cabezas, the assembly president at the moment, refused to comply with the opposition’s requests.
• The South American governments showed total solidarity with the Ecuadorian government and its people.
• About 6 pm the air force finally allowed regular operation at the airport. The military finally decided to rescue Correa after twelve hours of hesitation and in their way out of the hospital police snipers tried to kill the President. The car that took the president got 17 gunshots.  During the rescue operation, the cameras captured the dramatic killing of the soldier Froilán Jimenez as he protected the president’s car from the snipers.

CONTEXT

• Rafael Correa had been elected by 55% of the votes. One of his first actions was defaulting on $3.2B of private foreign debt and he  has been supportive of a private sue against Chevron for $20B .
• On top of that, Correa fulfilled his promise of closing the US military base in Manta and he has advocated very strongly for Latino American integration.
• Ecuador is among 75 countries where the USA has extended a clandestine net of military operation. [Washington Post June 4th 2010]
• In 2010, after Correa’s election, the State Department increased USAID’s budget in Ecuador to more than $38M.
• Chemonics, Inc is one of the main USAID groups operating in collaboration with the rightwing in Bolivia and Ecuador.
• In addition, the NED issued a grant for $125,806 to CIPE (Center for Private Enterprise) to promote free trade treaties, globalization, and regional autonomy through Ecuadorian radio, television and newspapers, along with the Ecuadoran Institute of Economic Policy.

 FINDINGS

• Galo Lara, a member of an opposition party, had been provoking the police against Correa since January 2011. [ElCiudadano Oct 22nd 2011]
• All across the main events we find people related to former right wing president Lucio Gutierrez and right wing political activist Carlos Vera, people who in previous weeks had met in the US with the extreme right wing of Latin America.
• On September 23rd, Gutierrez had had a meeting at the “Instituto Interamericano para la Democracia” in Miami where he hold conversations with mainly right wing politicians and personalities related to the CIA like Carlos Alberto Montaner. Other Ecuadorian personalities that assisted to this meeting were Roberto Isaias and Gustavo Lemus, both of them with extradition requests for corruption and human rights violations.
• During the events, Gutiérrez declared, “the end of Correa’s tyranny is at hand,” also asking for the “dissolution of Parliament and a call for early presidential elections.”
• The commander of the barracks was Colonel Manuel Rivadeneira Tello, a graduate of the SOA (School of the Americas) in Ft. Benning, Georgia. [SOA Watch / RT News]
• Audio and video recordings revealed the police were decided to kill the president.
• An official report from Ecuador’s Defense Minister, Javier Ponce, in 2008, revealed US diplomats infiltrated the police and the Armed Forces. The report confirmed the police maintained an informal economic dependence on the US, for the payment of informants, training, equipment and operations.
• US Ambassador in Ecuador, Heather Hodges, justified the collaboration linking the whole issue to fight against drug trafficking.
• Ambassador Hodges was sent to Ecuador in 2008. Previously she was Ambassator in Moldova where she instigated a failed colored revolution against its socialist government. in April of 2009 a majority of the communist party won  the elections to parliament of Moldova.
• Hodges also headed the Office of Cuban Affairs in 1991, that dedicates its efforts to destabilize the socialist government of Cuba.
• In 1993, Hodges was sent to Nicaragua in order to consolidate the administration of right wing president Violeta Chamorro.
• USAID and NED had granted collaboration in funding to indigenous and so called left organizations in Ecuador such as Participación Ciudadana and Pro-justicia as well as members and sectors of CODEMPE, Pachakutik, CONAIE, the Corporación Empresarial Indígena del Ecuador.
• The Indigenous organization Pachakutik besides getting financing from USAID and NED, they also have an alliance with Lucion Gutierrez. During the events of September 30, Pachakutik openly backed the coup and demanded the resignation of President Correa accusing him of being a dictator.
• The press somehow was warned of the event that were going to take place that day so the cameras where early before the chaos began. For example Milton Perez from Teleamazonas was twitting to pay attention to the events in Ecuador to his colleges in Colombia one on September 9th.

AFTERMATH

• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton failed to make a definitive statement on Ecuador’s situation until the situation was resolved by night.
• All the chaos and panic created by the press because of a law approved on supposedly reducing salaries and benefits was a lie.  Actually, in average, their salaries would be increased from $150 to $650 a month, to compensate bonuses and other benefits that were taken away.
• Commander Freddy Martinez was supposedly behind the misinformation, but he refused to clarify the events. [CNN news]
• Private journals like “El Comercio” deny the events as a military coup, but just an insurrection that the president handled in “the wrong way”.  In addition. The NED & the IRI keep financing groups that oppose the Correa’s administration, specially media group like FudaMedios and the SIP [YouTube] [Andes Oct 17-2013].

[Muchedumbre 30s film by Rodolfo Muñoz / Jean-Guy Allard Oct 9-2010]